This invention relates to data storage for computers, and more particularly to tracking or identifying logical volumes stored on one of a plurality of storage elements in a computer storage system.
Virtually all computer applications (or programs) rely on storage. This storage can be used for both storing the computer code and for storing data manipulated by the code. (The term xe2x80x9cdataxe2x80x9d refers to any information, including formatting information, error detection and correction information, executable code and data for manipulation by an application program.)
Storage technology has developed in a variety of different directions. Accordingly, a wide variety of storage systems are available. It has become impractical, therefore, for the person writing the computer application to also be responsible for detailed control over how data is stored on the storage system.
For this (and other) reasons, application programs typically run on an operating system (e.g., Unix, Windows, MS DOS, Linux, and the many variations of each). Once again, however, the operating system may be used with a variety of storage systems.
It would be highly inefficient to have to change the operating system, or the application programs, every time a change is made to physical storage. As a result, various layers of abstraction have evolved for viewing how data is actually stored in the storage system.
FIG. 1 illustrates one way of viewing the layers of abstraction. At the top level 10, the application program may assume that data is stored in a manner that has very little to do with how the data is placed onto the physical device. For example, the application may view the storage system as containing a number of directories and data files within the directories. Thus, in an application written for use in the Unix operating system, the application will assume that files are stored according to the Unix directory structure (including hierarchical directories and files located within the directories). This assumed organization of physical storage may have very little to do with how that data is actually stored onto the actual storage devices. This view may be referred to as the xe2x80x9clogical viewxe2x80x9d because of the separation between the logical view of data from the application level is divorced from any view of how the data is physically stored. A logical entity, such as a file, database or other construct, may be referred to at the logical level as a xe2x80x9clogical object.xe2x80x9d
The application level 10 interfaces with the file system level 12. The file system level is concerned with how files are stored on disks and how to make everything work efficiently and reliably. Thus, the file system level may be responsible for storing directory structure, and for breaking up files into constituent data blocks for storage onto a physical storage system. For example, in most implementations of Unix, each file has an associated I-node. This node may contain accounting and protection information and, additionally, a set of pointers to data blocks.
Relatively early in the development of computer systems, disk drives became a fundamental device for storage. Accordingly, computer operating systems have been developed assuming that memory will rely on input/output (xe2x80x9cI/Oxe2x80x9d) to a disk drive. The file system 12, therefore, may assume one or more xe2x80x9cvolumesxe2x80x9d which correspond to a physical storage unit such as a disk drive (or any other unit of storage), with data stored in blocks on the disk drive.
The demand for storage to be available for use by applications has sky rocketed. As a result, a number of separate physical devices may be required to accommodate the total amount of storage required for a system. In addition, storage systems are often changed or reconfigured.
To insulate the operating system from any changes within the physical device storage system, some mechanism is often employed to flexibly map a standard (volume) view of physical storage onto an actual physical storage system. Thus, an operating system or application may rely on xe2x80x9cvolumesxe2x80x9d of data. Again, these xe2x80x9cvolumesxe2x80x9d may not correspond to how data is actually stored on physical devices. Accordingly, these are xe2x80x9clogical volumesxe2x80x9d (as opposed to actual physical storage volumes) and are themselves xe2x80x9clogical objects.xe2x80x9d
The logical volume manager (xe2x80x9cLVMxe2x80x9d) 14 of FIG. 1 can help achieve the function of mapping the file system view of data storage into an intermediate layer.
For purposes of the specification and claims, xe2x80x9clogical volumexe2x80x9d refers to a logical entity that generally corresponds to a logical abstraction of physical storage. xe2x80x9cLogical volumexe2x80x9d may include, for example, an entity that is treated (logically) as though it were composed of consecutively addressed blocks in a fixed block architecture or records in a count-key-data architecture. xe2x80x9cLogical volumexe2x80x9d includes not only standard logical volumes, but also components of a standard logical volume, hyper-volumes, partitions, striped volumes, and concatenated (or meta) volumes. A logical volume may be physically stored on more than one storage element.
Finally, the actual storage reading and writing (and, potentially, additional mapping onto physical storage devices) occurs within the physical storage system level 16, as illustrated in FIG. 1. Thus, for example, the logical volume manager may map the file system level view of data (as logical volumes or some other logical entity) into volume sizes corresponding to fixed physical storage segment sizes for storage on a physical device (e.g, block sizes). The physical storage system level may then map the logical volume manager level (xe2x80x9clogicalxe2x80x9d) volumes onto physical storage segments (e.g., hyper-volumes discussed below).
Logical volume managers have been implemented for use with the HP-UX by HP and by VERITAS for Solaris operating systems (i.e., Vxc3x97VM), as examples. The Symmetrix line of storage systems, available from EMC Corporation, of Hopkinton, Mass., is one system capable of mapping hyper-volumes onto physical devices. (The Symmetrix product line of integrated cached disk arrays is described in numerous publications from EMC Corporation, including the Symmetrix model 55xx product manual, p-n200-810-550, rev.f, February, 1996.)
In the VERITAS Volume Manager, sold by VERITAS of Mountain View, Calif., logical volumes are assigned tags, which consist of an identifier for the host computer on which the volume manager is located and a time stamp indicating the time at which a logical volume was created. If a logical volume is electronically moved among the storage elements, it is assigned a new tag. Although logical volumes handled by this Volume Manager are not intended to be accessed by more than one host computer at any point in time, this has been done by manipulating the Volume Manager to provide tags for shared logical volumes to other host computers.
In any event, in the above examples, the mapping of application level data into actual physical storage occurs across four levels: application level to file system level; file system level to LVM level; LVM level to physical storage system level; and physical storage system level to the actual physical storage devices. More or fewer levels of mapping can be done. In some systems, for example, only one level of mapping is performed, e.g., mapping from the application level directly onto actual physical storage devices. In many systems, the mapping stage at the LVM level is omitted. Similarly, in many systems, no mapping is done at the physical storage level (e.g., data is stored directly onto actual devices corresponding to the format of the preceding level and without any further mapping onto physical storage components.) As another example, the file system level could be omitted and the application directly with logical (or actual) volumes.
FIG. 2A illustrates an example of the mapping that may be performed by the logical volume manager 14 and the physical storage system 16, to store data onto actual physical devices. The application/file system""s view of the storage system contemplates three separate storage devicesxe2x80x94volume A 20, volume B 21, and volume C 22. Thus, as far as the file system level 12 can discern, the system consists of three separate storage devices 20-22. Each separate storage device may be referred to as a xe2x80x9cvirtual volume,xe2x80x9d xe2x80x9clogical volumexe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cvirtual disk.xe2x80x9d This reflects that the operating system""s view of the storage device structure may not correspond to the actual physical storage system implementing the structure (hence, xe2x80x9cvirtualxe2x80x9d). Unlike the application level 10, however, the file system 12 perspective is as if the file system 12 were dealing with raw physical devices or volumes.
As far as the file system level is concerned, the virtual volumes may be divided up into xe2x80x9cpartitions,xe2x80x9d which are continuous segments of storage. These partitions are, in fact, xe2x80x9cvirtualxe2x80x9d partitions, because the partition may actually be stored across a variety of physical storage segments (e.g., hyper-volumes).
In FIG. 2A, the data is physically stored on the physical storage devices 24-26. In this particular example, although there are three physical devices 24-26 and three volumes 20-22, there is not a one to one mapping of the virtual volumes to physical devices. In this particular example, the data in volume A 20 is actually stored on physical devices 24-26, as indicated at 20a, 20b and 20c. In this example, volume B is stored entirely on physical device 24, as indicated at 22a, 22b. Finally, volume C is stored on physical device 24 and physical device 26 as indicated at 21a, 21b. 
In this particular example, the boxes 20a-20c, 21a-21b and 22a-22b represent contiguous segments of storage within the respective physical devices 24-26. These contiguous segments of storage may, but need not, be of the same size. The segments of storage may be referred to as xe2x80x9chyper-volumes,xe2x80x9d and correspond to segments of physical storage that can be used as components when constructing a virtual volume for use by the file system. A hypervolume may be comprised of a number of xe2x80x9cdata blocks.xe2x80x9d A data block is a unit of storage (e.g., a 512 byte block) that is written or read at one time from the physical storage device.
Array management software running on a general purpose processor (or some other mechanism such as a custom hardware circuit) 23 translates requests from a host computer (not shown) (made assuming the logical volume structure 20-22) into requests that correspond to the way in which the data is actually stored on the physical devices 24-26. In practice, the array management software 23 may be implemented as a part of a unitary storage system that includes the physical devices 24-26, may be implemented on a host computer, or may be done in some other manner.
In FIG. 2A the array management software 23 performs the functions of both the logical volume manager 14 (if present) and the physical storage level 16, by mapping the file system""s virtual volumes 20-22 into segments that can be stored onto physical devices 24-26. The array management software 23 also performs the functions of the physical storage system level 16, by determining where to store the hyper-volumes 20a-20c, 21a-21b and 22a-22b. 
The physical storage devices shown in the example of FIG. 2A are disk drives. A disk drive may include one or more disks of a recording media (such as a magnetic recording medium or an optical recording medium). Information can be written and read from this storage medium for storage purposes. The recording medium is typically in the form of a disk that rotates. The disk generally includes a number of tracks on which the information is recorded and from which the information is read. Each track may include more than one xe2x80x9cdata block.xe2x80x9d A data block is a unit of data that can be read as a single unit. A data block may be a 512 byte block of data, an 8 k segment on a 32 k track, or some other structure. In these examples, the size of the block is fixed. In other cases, the block may be of variable size, such as a CKD record. In a disk drive that includes multiple disks, the disks by convention are described as though they are stacked so that corresponding tracks of each disk overlie each other. In this case, specification of a single track on which information is stored within the disk drive includes not only specification of an individual track on a disk, but also which of the multiple disks the information is stored on.
To identify an individual data block, an address may include a specification of the disk (which may consist of several xe2x80x9cplattersxe2x80x9d) a specification of the track within the disk (or xe2x80x9ccylinderxe2x80x9d), a specification of the head (or which of the platters comprising the xe2x80x9cdiskxe2x80x9d) and a specification of the particular data block within the track. The specification of the position of the data block within the track may, for example, be addressed as an offset, e.g., this is the third data block appearing on the track. Thus, an address of ddcccch:offset may specify a blockxe2x80x94disk dd, cylinder cccc, head h and the specified offset. The physical storage devices for use with the present invention may, however, be formed in any other geometry, addressed in any other manner or even constitute a different type of storage mechanism.
FIG. 2B illustrates one example of mapping between the top level of abstractionxe2x80x94the application levelxe2x80x94to the actual physical storage level. An application level file 200 includes visual information. This information is in the form of a conventional file and includes a series of bits.
When the application level file is mapped onto physical storage, the application level file may be converted into segments of the individual bits, e.g., segment 203. Thus, a segment of the application level file 203 is mapped (for example according to the general mapping structure described above with reference to FIG. 1) onto actual physical storage devices 204-206. In this example, the first segment of bits in 203 in the application level file 200 is mapped onto physical storage device 204, at a portion 208 of the physical storage device 204. As shown in FIG. 2B, the individual segments of bits in the application level file 200 may be mapped anywhere among a plurality of actual physical storage devices. The granularity of the segments of bits (e.g., segment 203) may correspond to one of a variety of different levels. For example, the granularity of the segments may be a 512 byte data block. In another embodiment, the granularity may correspond to the amount of data stored in a track of the physical storage devices 204-206 (when the physical storage devices are disk drives).
FIG. 2C illustrates an example of a logical object 27 that includes six data blocks or logical block elements 27a-27f. The logical object itself may be any data structure or collection of data. For example, the logical object could be a database table, a portion of a file system file, or a complete file system file, a logical volume or any other identifiable logical object. Each of the data blocks 27a-27f may be a fixed size data block, or a varying size data block such as a CKD record.
In the example of FIG. 2C, the logical object is stored on a physical storage device 28. In this example, the storage device includes a number of columns, each representing a track of a disk.
Each row of the physical storage device represents a physical data or block element within the applicable column/track. For example, row 28a, column 28b, stores a data block corresponding to the logical block element 27b. Track 28b would store physical data blocks that have the contents of logical block elements 27a and 27b. As can be seen from FIG. 2C, the logical block elements can be stored in any order on the physical devices.
While the physical storage device 28 is illustrated as a contiguous array, this need not be the case. For example, each of the tracks, such as column 28b, may be stored on a different disk drive or be part of a different hypervolume.
In a system including an array of physical disk devices, such as disk devices 24-26 of FIG. 2A, each device typically performs error detection and/or correction for the data stored on the particular physical device. Accordingly, each individual physical disk device detects when it does not have valid data to provide and, where possible, corrects the errors. Even where error correction is permitted for data stored on the physical device, however, a catastrophic failure of the device would result in the irrecoverable loss of data.
Accordingly, storage systems have been designed which include redundant storage capacity. A variety of ways of storing data onto the disks in a manner that would permit recovery have developed. A number of such methods are generally described in the RAIDbook, A Source Book For Disk Array Technology, published by the RAID Advisory Board, St. Peter, Minn. (5th Ed., February, 1996). These systems include xe2x80x9cRAIDxe2x80x9d storage systems. RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks.
FIG. 3A illustrates one technique for storing redundant information in a RAID system. Under this technique, a plurality of physical devices 31-33 include identical copies of the data. Thus, the data M1 can be xe2x80x9cmirroredxe2x80x9d onto a portion 3 la of physical device 31, a portion 32a of physical device 32 and a portion 33a of physical device 33. In this case, the aggregate portions of the physical disks that store the duplicated data 31a, 32a and 33a maybe referred to as a xe2x80x9cmirror group.xe2x80x9d The number of places in which the data M1 is mirrored is generally selected depending on the desired level of security against irrecoverable loss of data.
In a mirror group, the copies are xe2x80x9clinked.xe2x80x9d That is, any update to one mirror causes an update to each other mirror in the group.
FIG. 3A shows three physical devices 31-33 which appear to be located in close proximity, for example within a single storage system unit. For very sensitive data, however, one or more of the physical devices that hold the mirrored data may be located at a remote facility. xe2x80x9cRAID 1xe2x80x9d is an example of data redundancy through mirroring of data. In a RAID 1 architecture, a number of different mechanisms may be used for determining how to access and update data to improve, for example, performance of the storage system. In any event, a RAID 1 architecture certainly has the ability to recover lost data. Unfortunately, the RAID 1 architecture multiplies the cost of physical storage by the number of xe2x80x9cmirrorsxe2x80x9d included in the mirror group.
FIG. 3B illustrates a solution that requires less added storage. In FIG. 3B, data is stored at locations 34a-34d. In this particular example, the physical device 33 includes parity information P1 at 35a, 35b. The parity information is generated by a simple exclusive-OR (xe2x80x9cXORxe2x80x9d) of the corresponding bits of data. Thus, the parity information P1 would be generated by XORing the corresponding bits of the data D1 and data D2.
A variety of mechanisms are known for distributing the parity information on the physical devices. In the example shown in FIG. 3B, all of the parity information is stored on a single physical device 33. In other cases, the parity information may be distributed across the physical devices.
FIG. 4 illustrates the concept that, within a given disk array, there is no need for all of the data to follow the same redundancy rule. In FIG. 4, a first group of storage segments on physical devices 40-42 form a mirror group 44. In the mirror group 44, the entire contents of a single logical volume (HV-A) are mirrored on three different physical devices 40-42.
In FIG. 4, a single virtual volume is stored on the fourth physical device 43, without any redundancy information, as indicated at 46.
Finally, a last group of data segments 45, on all four physical devices 40-43, implement a parity redundancy scheme. In this particular example, the parity information is stored in segments of memory on two different physical devices 42-43, as indicated at 47a and 47b. 
The storage system of FIG. 4 contains redundant information that permits recovery from errors, including use of a mirror for data located at a remote facility, that also permits recoveries from catastrophic failure.
FIG. 5 illustrates one system for additional backup, which may be used or adapted in accordance with certain aspects of the present invention. In FIG. 5, a computer or client 50 performs its operations using storage system 52. The client 50 may be any conventional computing system, such as a network client available from Sun Microsystems, and running the Solaris operating system (a version of Unix), an HP client running HP-UX (a Hewlett-Packard client, running a Hewlett-Packard version of the Unix operating system) or an IBM client running the AIX operating system (an IBM version of Unix) or any other system with an associated operating system. The storage system 52 may be any conventional storage system, including a Symmetrix storage system, described above. The client 50 may be connected to many other devices over a network 56.
A backup storage system 54 is also attached to the network 56. The backup storage system 54 includes a backup storage device (which may be disk drives, tape storage or any other storage mechanism), together with a system for placing data into the storage and recovering the data from that storage.
To perform a backup, the client 50 copies data from the storage system 52 across the network 56 to the backup storage system 54. This process can be explained in greater detail with reference to FIG. 1. The storage system 52 may correspond to the actual physical storage 16 of FIG. 1. For the client 50 to write the backup data over the network 56 to the backup storage system 54, the client 50 first converts the backup data into file dataxe2x80x94i.e. gets the data from the physical storage system level 16, and converts the data into application level format (e.g. a file) through the logical volume manager level 14, the file system level 12 and the application level 10. Thus, an actual data file may be communicated over the network 56 to the backup storage device 54. When the backup storage device 54 receives the data file, the backup storage system 54 can take the application level 10 data file, convert it to its appropriate file system level 12 format for the backup storage system, which can then be converted through a logical volume manager 14 level and into physical storage 16.
This form of backing up data may be referred to as xe2x80x9clogical-logicalxe2x80x9d backup. That is, the logical data is backed up on the backup storage device 54. The data to be backed up is presented independent of the manner in which it is physically stored on storage system 52 at the physical storage system level 16, independent of the file system level mechanisms on the client 50, and independent of how data is stored on the backup storage device 54.
The EDM (EMC Data Manager) line of products is capable of logical-logical backup over a network, as described in numerous publications available from EMC, including the EDM User Guide (Network) xe2x80x9cBasic EDM Manualxe2x80x9d.
FIG. 6 illustrates one embodiment of an alternative structure for backup of data which may also be used in accordance with the present invention. In the embodiment of FIG. 6, a direct connection 60 is established between the storage system 52 and the backup storage system 54. In this embodiment, the backup storage system may be a system as generally described in EMC Data Manager: Symmetrix Connect User Guide, P/N 200-113-591, Rev. C, December 1997, available from EMC Corporation of Hopkinton, Mass. The direct connection 60 may be a high speed data channel, such as a SCSI cable or one or more fibre-channel cables. In this system, a user may be permitted to backup data over the network 56, or the direct connection 60.
Whether the restore and backup process is done at a logical level or at a physical level, backups in the prior art require copying a complete file (or in some instances even more, such as an entire partition) for the backup. Methods of backing up and restoring data on the system of FIG. 6 are described in co-pending and commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/052,579, entitled xe2x80x9cLogical Restore From A Physical Backup In A Computer Storage System,xe2x80x9d filed Mar. 31, 1998, and naming John Deshayes and Madhav Mutalik as inventors, and which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
FIG. 7 shows a storage system 70 that may be used as the storage system 52 of FIG. 6. The client 50 may be connected to the storage device using a channel or bus 71. The channel for communication with the client 50 can be any suitable connection such as fibre channel, Small Computer System Interface (xe2x80x9cSCSIxe2x80x9d) or Enterprise Systems Connection Architecture (xe2x80x9cESCONxe2x80x9d). While only one communication channel 71 into the storage system 70 is shown in FIG. 7, other channels may be included. (While the method and apparatus of the present invention may be described with reference to the storage system of FIG. 6 and the physical storage system (and associated features and methods) of FIG. 7, this is not intended to be limiting. The present invention has broader application. Certain aspects of the invention may be applied to any storage system.)
Within the storage system 70 is a host adapter 72. In this particular embodiment, the host adapter 72 is responsible for managing and translating read and write requests from the host computer (e.g., client 52 or backup storage system 54), which are based on the virtual disk structure (e.g., from the file system or logical volume manager level), into one or more requests corresponding to how data is stored on the actual physical storage devices 76a-76d of the storage system 70. Thus, in this embodiment, the host adapter 72 implements at least some of the array management software 23 functions of FIG. 2. The host adapter 72 can be implemented in any of a number of ways, including using a general purpose processor or a custom hardware implementation. In addition, multiple host adapters may be included to facilitate having additional I/O channels for the storage system 70.
The host adapter 72 communicates with the other components of the storage system 70 using an interconnect such as bus 73. The bus 73 may be any suitable communication element, including use of SCSI, ESCON, and other bus protocols.
Access to the physical storage devices 76a-76d is controlled through the use of disk adapters 75a-75d. The disk adapter 75a-75d can also be implemented using a general purpose processor or custom hardware design. In the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 7, a disk adapter is provided for each physical storage device. A disk adapter can, of course, have more than one storage device attached to it. In addition, disk adapters may include secondary connections to the physical storage devices of another disk adapter. This permits recovery from failure of one disk adapter by shifting its functions to the second disk adapter.
In the embodiment of FIG. 7, reading and writing to the physical storage device 76a-76d through the disk adapters 75a-75d is facilitated through use of a cache 74. The cache 74 may be a random access memory having greater speed than the disk drives. When reading data, if the data is being temporarily stored in the cache, the read request can be fulfilled more quickly by taking the data from the cache 74. Similarly, when writing data, the data to be written can be stored in the cache. The other components of the system can proceed, while the data is written from the cache to the applicable physical storage device.
Any of a variety of mechanisms can be used to implement and manage the cache. An example of such a mechanism is included in U.S. Pat. No. 5,537,568, entitled xe2x80x9cSystem for dynamically controlling cache manager maintaining cache index and controlling sequential data access,xe2x80x9d issued on Jul. 16, 1996. Similarly, writes may be accomplished through the cache using any of a variety of mechanisms and strategies. One mechanism for writing from the cache is to store the data to be written in the cache, and mark a xe2x80x9cwrite pendingxe2x80x9d bit. When the write pending bit is encountered, the applicable data can be written to the disk. This technique is described generally in U.S. Pat. No. 5,341,493, entitled xe2x80x9cDisk storage system with write preservation during power failure,xe2x80x9d issued on Aug. 23, 1994.
The cache may be divided into more than one area. For example, the cache may include an area 74a for storing data being read or written from physical storage devices 76a-76d. The cache may further include a xe2x80x9cmailboxxe2x80x9d area 74b. The mailbox area 74b may be used to facilitate communications among the disk adapters 75a-75d and with the host adapter 72. For example, each disk adapter may have its own area within the mailbox 74b. Each of the disk adapters 75a-75d can post or read information from the applicable mailbox area 74b, to communicate status and other information.
A remote adapter 78 may also be attached to the bus 73 of the storage system 70. The remote adapter may be employed for communication with remote data facilities (xe2x80x9cRDFxe2x80x9d), for example, connection to another storage device to maintain a mirror redundancy group. One form of RDF link and method of implementation is described in various publications available from EMC Corporation, including SYMMETRIX Remote Data Facility Product Manual, P/N 200-999-554, rev. B, June 1995. RDF embodiments are also described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,544,347 (Yanai) which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. It should be appreciated, however, that the present invention is not limited to the use of RDF or to a system that employs SYMMETRIX disk arrays, and can be employed with any of numerous other types of storage systems.
A service processor 77 may be coupled to the bus 73 of the storage system 70. The service processor 77 may include a display, keyboard and other I/O devices to permit an operator to use the service processor 77 for configuring the components of the storage system 70 and for running or initiating diagnosis and maintenance facilities.
While the method and apparatus of the present invention may be described with reference to the systems and concepts described above and in the discussion of the related art, this is not intended to be limiting. The present invention has broader application. Certain aspects of the invention may be applied to any storage system. Accordingly, the invention is only limited by the claims set forth below.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, a method of specifying a logical volume in the computer system is disclosed. The computer system may have a plurality of storage elements and a plurality of host computers. According to this embodiment, the method comprises steps of assigning a logical volume identifier to the logical volume and assuring that the logical volume identifier is unique to the logical volume. According to this (and certain other) embodiments, the logical volume may be a conventional logical volume, a partition, a hyper-volume, a striped volume or a component of a conventional logical volume. As defined more fully below, a xe2x80x9clogical volumexe2x80x9d is an entity that a host or application level computer use as a unit of storage. According to this embodiment, the same logical volume identifier may be maintained when a logical volume is moved among storage elements in the computer system. The logical volume identifier may be assigned independent of the location of storage for the logical volume. Descriptive information may be maintained with respect to logical volumes and their associated logical volume identifier, such as identifying the entity that created the logical volume, identifying entities that may access the logical volume, identifying access history for the logical volume and other information. The format of the logical volume identifier may correspond to the format for memory access requests made by host computers in the system. For example, the format may be that of a world wide name or a world wide name with a logical unit identifier or may correspond to these formats by including these as a subfield. The logical volume identifier may be assigned independent of the host computer that created the logical volume.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a method of storing and maintaining a logical volume is disclosed. According to this embodiment, the logical volume is identified and then an ELVID (as defined below) is assigned to the logical volume. The same ELVID is maintained when the logical volume is electronically moved. A database of ELVIDs may be maintained at a storage management console or elsewhere.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a computer system is disclosed. According to this embodiment, a plurality of storage elements are provided together with means for assigning a logical volume identifier to a logical volume and means for assuring that the logical volume identifier is unique to the logical volume to which it is assigned.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a computer storage system is disclosed. According to this embodiment, at least one storage element is provided, together with means for assigning ELVIDs to logical volumes stored on the storage element. Such means may be provided at a storage management controller, on one or more of the storage elements or elsewhere.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a storage management controller is disclosed. According to this embodiment, an ELVID assignor is provided to assign ELVIDs to logical volumes. According to this embodiment, an interface is also provided for communication with storage elements. The storage management controller may further include an ELVID database manager or a logical volume movement manager.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a storage management controller is provided. According to this embodiment, the storage management controller includes an ELVID database manager and a memory to store an ELVID database.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a method of inventorying logical volumes in a computer storage system is disclosed. According to this embodiment, identifying information for each user of a respective logical volume is maintained for each of a plurality of logical volumes in the computer storage system. xe2x80x9cUsersxe2x80x9d may be any definable entity permitted to access memory, such as a host computer, an account on one or more host computers (e.g., a person logged into a computer on their account) or an application program. For each of the plurality of logical volumes, a verification step is performed to assure that logical volume is still in use. For example, if a logical volume has not been accessed for a great period of time, the logical volume may not need to be maintained on a primary storage element and can be moved to secondary storage. The step of verifying that the logical volume is still in use can be performed as a continuous discrete process for the computer storage system, for logical volumes on a specific storage element or in some other fashion.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a storage element is disclosed. According to this embodiment, the storage element includes a storage medium, an access manager module to maintain identifying information for each user of logical volumes and a verifier module to perform verification. A verification module may include a time tracker to identify when a logical volume has not been accessed for an identified period of time.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a storage management controller is disclosed. According to this embodiment, an access manager module and a verifier module are included.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a method of detecting when one of a plurality of logical volumes no longer needs to be stored on a respective storage element. According to this embodiment, accesses to the logical volumes are tracked, a logical volume that has not been accessed for a predetermined period of time is automatically identified and, for such an identified logic volume, it is determined whether the identified logical volume still requires storage on its present storage element. This step of determining may comprise a step of polling users which have accessed the identified logical volume in the past.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a method of identifying a logical volume is provided. According to this embodiment, the logical volume is identified by reading an ELVID assigned to the logical volume and using the ELVID to access identifying information about the logical volume. According to this embodiment, a database may be maintained, for example, at a storage management controller. The identifying information may identify host computers that created the logical volume or host computers authorized to access the logical volume or host computers that have accessed the logical volume (or which currently have an open session which permits access of the logical volume).
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a computer system is disclosed. According to this embodiment, a plurality of storage elements are provided together with means for reading a logical volume identifier and means for using the logical volume identifier to access identifying information about the logical volume.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a logical volume identifier database is disclosed. According to this embodiment, a computer readable medium is provided which stores a plurality of logical volume identifiers, each identifier being unique to a respective logical volume stored among a plurality of storage elements. As above, additional identifying information may be included in the database.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a method of providing a user with access to a logical volume is disclosed. According to this embodiment, an ELVID for the logical volume is determined and provided to the user. The user may be a host computer or an individual account on a host computer. The term xe2x80x9chost computerxe2x80x9d as used in this specification and claims includes both host computer sites, user accounts on host computer sites and other entities that are permitted user level access to data stored on storage elements in the computer system. According to this embodiment, the method of providing access can include a step of maintaining a database of ELVIDs stored on a plurality of storage elements. The maintaining step may be performed on a host computer or a storage management controller.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a method of accessing logical volumes is disclosed. According to this embodiment, an ELVID is determined and used to access the logical volume.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a host computer is disclosed. According to this embodiment, the host computer includes a processing unit (any hardware unit which permits processing, such as a microcontroller, microprocessor, or special hardware designed for a particular host computer) and an ELVID interface module to translate requests for accesses to a logical volume to an ELVID for the logical volume.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a host computer is disclosed. According to this embodiment, the host computer includes a processing unit and an ELVID module to translate an ELVID for a logical volume to a physical storage location for that logical volume.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a storage management controller is disclosed. According to this embodiment, the storage management controller includes an access management module to provide access to logical elements by providing a physical storage address associated with an ELVID for the respective logical volume.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a computer system is disclosed. According to this embodiment, the computer system includes a plurality of host computers, a plurality of storage elements and means for assigning ELVIDs to logical volumes.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a method of moving a logical entity from a first storage element to a second storage element is disclosed. According to this embodiment, a copy of the logical entity is created on the second storage element (for example, by mirroring). All reads for the logical entity are moved to the location of the second storage element. After all of the reads have been moved writes are moved to the location for the logical entity on the second storage element. If a mirror is used, the mirror may be maintained while all of the reads are moved. The logical entity may be a logical volume, such as a conventional logical volume, a component of a conventional logical volume, a hyper volume, a partition or a striped volume. The method according to this embodiment may include a step of determining an ELVID for the logical entity.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a host computer is disclosed. According to this embodiment, the host computer includes a processing unit and a memory interface module. According to this embodiment, the memory interface module permits access to a logical entity to be made to one physical storage location for read request while write requests are made to a different physical storage location. According to some embodiments, the memory interface module can include an ELVID interface module to translate requests for access to a logical volume to an ELVID for that logical volume. According to other embodiments, the memory interface module may instead or in addition include an ELVID interface module to translate an ELVID to a physical storage location for a logical volume.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a storage management controller is disclosed. According to this embodiment, the storage management controller includes an interface module to communicate with storage elements and an entity movement manager to control separate moving of read locations and write locations for a specified logical entity.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a computer system is disclosed. According to this embodiment, the computer system includes a plurality of host computers, a plurality of storage elements and means for separately moving reads for a logical entity and writes for a logical entity.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a method of moving a logical volume from a first storage element to a second storage element is disclosed. According to this embodiment, an ELVID is provided for the logical volume. A copy of the logical volume is provided on the second storage element. The physical storage location on the second storage element is associated with the ELVID to cause accesses to the logical volume to be made to the second storage element. The step of associating may be performed, for example, by the host computer, a storage management controller or both (for example, with the storage management controller initiating the change in the host computer performing the change).
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a method of rolling back a logical volume to a previous state is disclosed. According to this embodiment, a copy of the logical volume in a previous state is provided. An ELVID for the logical volume is provided. The roll back is completed by associating a physical storage location for the copy with the ELVID, to cause accesses to the logical volume to be made to the physical storage location for the copy.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a method of providing for and implementing immediate restoration of the logical volume is disclosed. According to this embodiment, a restoration copy of the logical volume is maintained at a physical storage location on a storage device. An ELVID is provided for the logical volume. The restoration is completed by changing a physical storage location associated with the ELVID for the logical volume to correspond to the physical location on the storage device for the restoration.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a storage management controller for a storage system with a plurality of storage elements is disclosed. According to this embodiment, the storage management controller includes an interface module to communicate with the storage elements and a logical volume movement module to move the location of logical volume access request by updating entries in at least one ELVID database.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a computer system is disclosed. According to this embodiment, at least one host computer and a plurality of storage devices are included in the computer system. The computer system further includes means for changing the location of access requests, including means for changing a physical storage location address associated with an ELVID for the logical volume.
Accordingly to another embodiment of the present invention, a method of accessing a logical volume stored on at least one of the plurality of storage elements is disclosed. According to this embodiment, an ELVID for the logical volume is specified. A physical storage address for the logical volume is also specified. This embodiment further includes a step of verifying that the ELVID corresponds to the physical storage address. The verification step may be performed, for example, by a host computer, a storage management controller, a storage element or some combination of these.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a method of accessing a logical volume stored on at least one of a plurality of storage elements is disclosed. According to this embodiment an ELVID for the logical volume is specified and a physical storage address for the logical volume is specified. The method includes a step of using the ELVID to assure that an entity requesting access to the logical volume is authorized to do so.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a host computer is disclosed. According to this embodiment, the host computer includes a processing unit and an ELVID interface module to transmit access requests for logical volumes, access requests including an ELVID for the logical volume and a respective physical storage location for the logical volume.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a storage device is disclosed. According to this embodiment, the storage device includes a storage medium and an ELVID verifier module, to verify access requests.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a storage device is disclosed. According to this embodiment, the storage device includes a storage medium and an ELVID authorization module to verify access requests.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a computer system is disclosed. According to this embodiment, the computer system includes at least one host computer, a plurality of storage elements, means for associating ELVIDs with requests for access to logical volumes and means for verifying that access requests to physical storage locations are made for the appropriate logical volume identified by a respective ELVID.
According to another embodiment of the invention, a computer system is disclosed. According to this embodiment, the computer system includes at least one host computer, a plurality of storage elements and means for verifying that access request logical volumes having an associated ELVID are made by an entity authorized access logical volume.
Each of the above disclosed invention embodiments may be used and applied separately and independently, or may be applied in combination. Description of one aspect of the invention is not intended to be limiting with respect to other aspects of the invention. In addition, application of combinations of the above disclosed embodiments may also be inventive; systems including many of these combinations is described more fully below.